Organizers need millions more for Marshals Museum

Workers are expected to break ground on the museum in September 2014, and so far, organizers have raised close to $12 million, Dunn said.

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By JEANNIE NUSSAssociated Press

Stuttgart Daily Leader - Stuttgart, AR

By JEANNIE NUSSAssociated Press

Posted Jul. 15, 2013 at 9:05 AM

By JEANNIE NUSSAssociated Press

Posted Jul. 15, 2013 at 9:05 AM

FORT SMITH, Ark.

Organizers need to raise millions of dollars before they break ground on the $50 million U.S. Marshals Museum slated to open in 2016 on the banks of the Arkansas River in Fort Smith.

"In order to break ground, we don't have to have all of that ($50 million) in hand," said Jim Dunn, the museum's president and CEO. "We probably have to have something in the vicinity of the mid-30s," though Dunn said the finance committee would come up with a more concrete number.

Workers are expected to break ground on the museum in September 2014, and so far, organizers have raised close to $12 million, Dunn said. That figure includes private donations and money from the state, city and county, Dunn said. However, Dunn said the nearly $12 million doesn't include proceeds from the sale of a commemorative coin, which could produce up to $5 million.

New market tax credits also could chip in as much as $10 million, Dunn said.

"We have penciled that in, but we've got to carry an eraser with us because it depends on a lot of contingencies," Dunn said. "But we're going to work real hard to make that happen, too."

The tentative groundbreaking date is pegged to the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Marshals, Dunn said, but money could change things.

"If we had $35 million, we would be under construction," Dunn said.

The original U.S. Marshals Museum was located in Laramie, Wyo., until it closed in late 2002, according to the museum's website. The U.S. Marshals Service decided to make the museum's new home in Fort Smith, founded nearly 200 years ago as a frontier outpost that both outlaws and law enforcement traveled through on their way to and from the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma.

While construction on the museum isn't set to get under way for at least another year, visitors to the city already see a bit of the Marshals' history.

A statue of U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves holds a gun in the air as he greets people traveling from Oklahoma across the Arkansas River into Fort Smith.

Reeves, a former slave born in Arkansas and raised in Texas, became one of the best known deputy U.S. marshals to ride out of Fort Smith, according to a sign near the statue.

"This statue is a dedication to Bass Reeves and all federal lawmen who bravely served our nation with valor, fortitude, and unwavering integrity," the sign says.